Finding itself under siege because of the revelation that sensitive personal information on some 145,000 people may have been improperly released, data vendor ChoicePoint announced last week that it will no longer provide access to information containing sensitive content such as Social Security numbers to many of its existing customers, especially small businesses. In a press release posted at www.choicepoint.com the company said that sensitive data will be made available only "where there is a specific consumer-driven transaction or benefit, or where the products support federal, state or local government and criminal justice purposes."

As part of the transition to this new policy, ChoicePoint is reviewing the status of its accounts. For now, when users log on they encounter a message reading in part:

"Dear Customer: Based on recent issues, we are taking a proactive stance on managing access to sensitive information. ChoicePoint is requesting an update of your user and account information and reducing your access to some data -- until we process the update. Your account is still open and searches are running. Some Social Security numbers, Drivers License numbers and dates of birth may be truncated (only part of the number will display) on reports or searches."

ChoicePoint announced that the account reviews may include visits to the premises of small businesses to verify that they are legitimate operations.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. New search engine for free public records

While ChoicePoint is limiting access to its content, a new search engine is making it easier to locate public records that have been put on the free web by local governments and other data providers. Pretrieve < www.pretrieve.com > allows you to plug in a name and automatically get links to its listing in online phonebooks as well as databases of property records, uniform commercial code filings, court dockets, professional licenseholders, campaign contributions, etc. Coverage varies by area. Searches can be done for businesses as well as individuals. Social security numbers are not included, but there are links to a database < www.anybirthday.com > that compiles dates of birth from public sources.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Companies with employees in government health programs

Iowa just became the tenth state to release data on employers with the largest number of workers and their dependents participating in taxpayer- funded health programs such as Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The push for such disclosures is being led by unions and advocacy groups concerned about the large number of workers at firms such as Wal-Mart who are denied access to comprehensive and affordable coverage on the job and must turn to public programs instead, thus putting governments in the position of indirectly subsidizing the employers.

Dirt Diggers editor Phil Mattera, in his capacity as research director of Good Jobs First, has assembled all of the available disclosures and posted them at:http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/corporate_subsidy/hidden_taxpayer_costs.cfm---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. "Green Canary" report examines corporate political contributions

The Center for Political Accountability has released a report < www.politicalaccountability.net/gcreport/indexgc.htm > arguing that the failure of corporations to disclose their political contributions creates an unacceptable risk to shareholders. Likening such disclosure to the canaries used by miners as an early warning system to detect a build-up of toxic gases, the Center sees the availability of contribution data as a way to discourage the kind of executive misbehavior that arose at firms such as Enron and WorldCom. (Although federal contributions by corporations to candidates are banned, companies can still give at the state level and to 527 political committees). The report includes an analysis of voluntary disclosure practices at large companies.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Factiva branches out from full-text to company data

Factiva < www.factiva.com >, the Dow Jones-Reuters joint venture that provides full-text access to thousands of news and business publications, has introduced a new service that puts it in the corporate profile business. Called Factiva Companies & Executives, it provides basic financial and operating data on thousands of companies. It is unclear how much of the content will be original with Factiva. The service will act as a gateway to data from established providers such as D&B, Standard & Poor's, Thomson, Hoover's, and Factiva parents Reuters and Dow Jones. In this regard it resembles services such as Skyminder < www.skyminder.com > and OneSource < www.onesource.com >.

It is not yet clear whether the new service will be available to individual Factiva subscribers or only to companies and institutions.

Corporate Knights Inc., a Canadian publisher of materials on corporate social responsibility, has joined with investment research firm Innovest Strategic Value Advisors to assemble what they call The Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World < www.global100.org >. "The Global 100," the site says, "are sustainable in the sense that they stand the best chance of being around in 100 years because of their demonstrated performance and strategic ability to manage the triple bottom line (society, environment, and economy)." The site does not offer rankings of all the companies, but it does list the top three: Toyota, Aloca and BP.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich recently signed legislation that will require prospective state vendors to disclose where the work is to be performed. The law, which becomes effective on June 1, requires the state to produce a report on offshoring in procurement contracts by September 2007. The text of the law (Public Act 93-1081) can be found at:http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/fulltext.asp?name=093-1081&GA=093

The National Farmers Union has published updated data on agribusiness concentration compiled by Mary Hendrickson and William Heffernan of the University of Missouri. The new data, for example, shows that the top four beef packers now control 83.5 percent of the market and the top four pork packers 64 percent. See: http://www.nfu.org/documents/legislative/Concentration_Tables_2004.pdf

Two websites, ResearchBuzz and StaggerNation, have created forms allowing proximity searches on Yahoo and Google. I have found these especially useful for researching individuals. The proximity search forms allow you to search the Internet with the flexibility of a Lexis search (i.e. first name w/2 last name). The Yahoo form, YNAPS < http://www.researchbuzz.org/ynaps_yahoo_nonapi_proximity_search.shtml > allows searches of up to five word proximity. The Google form, GAPS, < www.staggernation.com/cgi-bin/gaps.cgi > is not as useful. GAPS allows searches of up to three word proximity and usually only returns the top 10 to 20 results.